2K20 Q1 Update
I’ve decided, at least for now, to go back to quarterly updates here. It is an interesting challenge, to keep up with the pace I’ve set for myself with the FOH series. The response to COVID-19 is going to impact the FOH series somewhat,
without some major reversion. I have enough in the pipeline to go
through the end of April, but filming further episodes may be somewhat
challenging in the near future. It has been doing a great job of driving content for the blog, so it’s working out well, to this point. It’s also a great load of fun and I’m hopeful that everyone has checked it out and enjoyed it. It both allows me to branch out a bit, as well as to keep this blog consistent, at least in terms of content and tone...aside from one small difference, that being that I have also decided to open things up a bit and accept product, on a limited basis, for review. For now, that is mostly Roger Damptz, of Burn Your Tongue, up in Ogden, Utah, who has provided some products he wanted to see reviewed here and on FOH, but if manufacturers of hot sauce and/or spicy snacks (or restaurants either offering or considering spicy menu entries) out there happen to be reading this want to get in on it, please feel free to contact me.
The biggest posting year that the blog has ever had was 2013, with 52 entries. I’m not sure I’ll ever be enjoying that rarified air again, as I tend to finish through sauces before opening a whole bunch more (hence the inconsistency of posting schedule here), but between this and the FOH series, there should be a lot more content available from me...at least for this year. I don’t know how long I will be able to maintain the posting schedule at FOH, as I’m bound to run out of snacks and so on at some point, though right now, the non-sauce videos are greatly outpacing the sauce videos, at least in terms of planning and scheduling, but sauces should be good to go for (hopefully) at least all of 2020, regardless of COVID-19, assuming I don't wind up getting taken out by it, which is, of course, a very real possibility for all of us.
One of my goals, in addition to getting everything on my Standards AND the previous SOTY winners (as many as I can find, anyway) to have video support, is to start checking though the sauces (barring any that have prohibited ingredients, naturally) featured on The Hot Ones video show. I have posted a full list of The Hot Ones sauces throughout all 11 seasons and linked to the ones I’ve done. I also will be doing a quarterly round-up/fridge door sauce clean-up in the style of The Hot Ones, with the first episode coming out tomorrow, April 01, 2020 (no joke!).
Skip this paragraph and the next if you don’t share my love of statistics, but out of a total of 66 sauces on the show, I have done 7 in full reviews and 7 in mini-reviews. There are 4 sauces that are discontinued entirely. I have rejected 33 due to having onions, which leaves about 15 or so to do, assuming I don’t go back and expand the mini-reviews for the ones I've done there (unlikely).
All sauces that I have done that also appear on the show will have their reviews referencing that factoid, as well as in which season they appeared. There are zero seasons I currently will be able to do to 100%, so my goal now is really just to do as many as I can that I’ve missed, which I may possibly be able to do this year, as there are a lot of duplicates. As long as the show runs, I will keep tabs and update.
I also wanted to mention that due to a counting error, the totals were wrong at the end of the year for 2019 and maybe beyond. By my reckoning, I’m at 203 sauces overall already, with the 200th overall review (including the mini-reviews) being the Bear River Buffalo. I’m still a bit off with 200 full reviews and that total includes, as mentioned, the mini-reviews, but I’m going to wax philosophic for a moment...I always expected, when I started this blog and was doing it, that I would eventually hit that number, but for the early part of last year and even in 2018, it seemed very, very far away and as mentioned, I was considering running out what I had and then letting the blog drift more towards hiatus. Without Roger both bringing back BYT and clearing up a significant sourcing issue for me AND giving me the support, it is certainly possible it may not have happened at all, so, again, my deepest and mightiest heartfelt thanks that Roger is in my corner.
Right now, BYT, as it is situated in a closed mall, is, for all intents and purposes, mostly shuttered at the moment, but I look forward to the day I can triumphantly return to browse those shelves. I'm also hopeful he will move forward with an online shop. The Burn Your Tongue Facebook page seems to be the best place to get updated news from him, which would include stuff like I mentioned, so I will include that here: https://www.facebook.com/BurnYourTongue/. I know he definitely could use your support and definitely deserves it.
Take care, everyone, and thanks for dropping by.
Tuesday, March 31, 2020
Friday, March 13, 2020
Arthur Wayne Limitless Hot Sauce Review
Arthur Wayne Limitless Hot Sauce
UPDATE: Video support available here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g8igJ6M0i58
Note: This sauce was provided for purposes of review by Roger Damptz of Burn Your Tongue. Check him out on Facebook or, better yet, head on over to his new online outlet where you can shop the widest selection available anywhere, www.burnyourtongueonline.com.
I was looking through my sauces on deck to find something more along the lines of sweet hot. This one, with pineapple listed, likely as a sugar source, seemed a good bet. What I did not realize was that it also is a sauce I would consider more a super hot, with both Moruga Scorpions and Jolokias playing heavily into the mix. The text of this one lists it as "limitless" in application, hence the name, and I'm not sure I would argue that. It worked well on nearly everything I tried it on, though it needed to be used sparingly or would otherwise pretty handily overpower the flavor of what I was using it on. It also mentions this is a hotter version of a different sauce they make, but I was not able to get much of a read on what that flavor might be, as the Scorpions are very prominent here, both in terms of heat and flavor. I may try to track down that other sauce, though, as this seems like a pretty well-crafted sauce, even if it does not strike me as simply a hotter version of something else.
The heat is pretty immediate and comes roaring in, somewhat obliterating whatever other flavors might be there. The predominant flavor profile here is the Scorpions, so it is basically a sweeter aspect to an otherwise very hot pepper. If you don't like the flavoring of Scorpion peppers, you may struggle with this sauce somewhat. It does not have a restrictor cap, which could lead to oversaucing, which you probably really do not want to do with this one, but the sauce is thick enough, that kind of cap would cause issues. Have a care, though, as the heat can build and get fairly intense for a non-extract sauce. In fact, I would also go so far as to say this one is better left solely to the chileheads.
Bottom line: Heat here is pretty stepped up, so this is best to be used solely by chileheads. It can quickly overtake flavors of food, with the dominant flavor here of Scorpion peppers. While I don't love everything about it, it is also our first contender for Sauce Of The Year for 2020.
Breakdown:
Heat level: 8
Flavor: 6
Flexibility: 8
Enjoyment to dollar factor: 8
Overall: 8
Note: This sauce was provided for purposes of review by Roger Damptz of Burn Your Tongue. Check him out on Facebook or, better yet, head on over to his new online outlet where you can shop the widest selection available anywhere, www.burnyourtongueonline.com.
I was looking through my sauces on deck to find something more along the lines of sweet hot. This one, with pineapple listed, likely as a sugar source, seemed a good bet. What I did not realize was that it also is a sauce I would consider more a super hot, with both Moruga Scorpions and Jolokias playing heavily into the mix. The text of this one lists it as "limitless" in application, hence the name, and I'm not sure I would argue that. It worked well on nearly everything I tried it on, though it needed to be used sparingly or would otherwise pretty handily overpower the flavor of what I was using it on. It also mentions this is a hotter version of a different sauce they make, but I was not able to get much of a read on what that flavor might be, as the Scorpions are very prominent here, both in terms of heat and flavor. I may try to track down that other sauce, though, as this seems like a pretty well-crafted sauce, even if it does not strike me as simply a hotter version of something else.The heat is pretty immediate and comes roaring in, somewhat obliterating whatever other flavors might be there. The predominant flavor profile here is the Scorpions, so it is basically a sweeter aspect to an otherwise very hot pepper. If you don't like the flavoring of Scorpion peppers, you may struggle with this sauce somewhat. It does not have a restrictor cap, which could lead to oversaucing, which you probably really do not want to do with this one, but the sauce is thick enough, that kind of cap would cause issues. Have a care, though, as the heat can build and get fairly intense for a non-extract sauce. In fact, I would also go so far as to say this one is better left solely to the chileheads.
Bottom line: Heat here is pretty stepped up, so this is best to be used solely by chileheads. It can quickly overtake flavors of food, with the dominant flavor here of Scorpion peppers. While I don't love everything about it, it is also our first contender for Sauce Of The Year for 2020.
Breakdown:
Heat level: 8
Flavor: 6
Flexibility: 8
Enjoyment to dollar factor: 8
Overall: 8
Friday, March 6, 2020
Murder By Primo Hot Sauce Review
Jersey Barnfire Murder By Primo Hot Marinara Sauce
UPDATE: Video support for this sauce available here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sS-i_LbNTyA
Note: This sauce was provided for purposes of review by Roger Damptz of Burn Your Tongue. Check him out on Facebook or, better yet, head on over to his new online outlet where you can shop the widest selection available anywhere, www.burnyourtongueonline.com.
Now, with a name like this, it's pretty hard to miss remembering it, which is a very smart touch from Jersey Barnfire. I didn't know they were the makers of this, in fact, until I started checking out the label and so on. It sounded like it might have been a superhot at the time I first saw it, so I took a pass. I mentioned it at some point to Roger, who also remembered it and threw in a bottle when he gave me the hook-up for review sauces. I also, it should be noted, did not know it was a marinara, either.
There is indeed a dearth of sauces on the Italian side of thing. Most of the time, if you're hitting up pizza, you're using something that isn't really intended for that, but which works well enough. Move to spaghetti or lasagna or any heavily Italian-oriented dish, though, and you run down pretty quickly into dried pepper flakes. Sure, this will do in a pinch, but quite a number of us have given a lot of consideration to why this style of food, given its prominence and popularity, doesn't seem to have many sauces aimed at it. This sauce goes a long way towards answering that question, I think. More on that in a bit...
First, though, the brilliance of the labeling here. We see nice slash writing across the front, with a sort of black and white montage, instantly calling to mind something out of a Raymond Chandler or Dashiell Hammett story. The throwback to the black and white days is complete with the text on the back, which is clear intended to be a throwback to mafia mobsters of old. Just touches of absolute brilliance and I was pretty excited to try it as well, for the fact that I don't often run across Primo peppers too often in sauces.
So, I cracked the bottle open and immediately got another throwback, this one to more bygotten days of...let's just say it smelled skunky. How about that? If we're thinking the days of skunk weed, which is a scent pretty hard to forget after you're immersed for a while, and even if it's been multiple decades since the last time, any encounter is instantly recognizable, you're on the money. That the exact smell I got and I checked the label to see if it was also made with hemp or something. It, indeed, was not.
Sometimes something will have a fairly foul odor, but an overall good taste, which may or may not also reflect the smell. Not the case here. My guess is some interaction with the vinegar and the herbs and it seems much clearer now why sauce makers are not aiming anything at the Italian food side of things. I thought for years it was the clash of flavors, but that may be only part of the story. Whatever happened here has resulted in a foulness of flavor. If you can mask the flavor, there is a solid and fairly robust heat, but if you can't disguise this...far, far less enjoyable. I can't say it works a lot better on Italian food than any of the other ones I will usually use, even if it is a marinara. It's possible this is spoiled, but you can get quite a few of the shots at Italian flavoring staples to kind of see what they were going for, but this is a major miss for me.
Bottom line: This is a shame. Unless you really like the smell and flavor of skunk weed in your food, or really want to get a feel for Primo peppers and can't find anything else, steer clear of this one.
Breakdown:
Heat level: 4
Flavor: 0
Flexibility: 3
Enjoyment to dollar factor: 1
Overall: 2
Note: This sauce was provided for purposes of review by Roger Damptz of Burn Your Tongue. Check him out on Facebook or, better yet, head on over to his new online outlet where you can shop the widest selection available anywhere, www.burnyourtongueonline.com.
Now, with a name like this, it's pretty hard to miss remembering it, which is a very smart touch from Jersey Barnfire. I didn't know they were the makers of this, in fact, until I started checking out the label and so on. It sounded like it might have been a superhot at the time I first saw it, so I took a pass. I mentioned it at some point to Roger, who also remembered it and threw in a bottle when he gave me the hook-up for review sauces. I also, it should be noted, did not know it was a marinara, either.There is indeed a dearth of sauces on the Italian side of thing. Most of the time, if you're hitting up pizza, you're using something that isn't really intended for that, but which works well enough. Move to spaghetti or lasagna or any heavily Italian-oriented dish, though, and you run down pretty quickly into dried pepper flakes. Sure, this will do in a pinch, but quite a number of us have given a lot of consideration to why this style of food, given its prominence and popularity, doesn't seem to have many sauces aimed at it. This sauce goes a long way towards answering that question, I think. More on that in a bit...
First, though, the brilliance of the labeling here. We see nice slash writing across the front, with a sort of black and white montage, instantly calling to mind something out of a Raymond Chandler or Dashiell Hammett story. The throwback to the black and white days is complete with the text on the back, which is clear intended to be a throwback to mafia mobsters of old. Just touches of absolute brilliance and I was pretty excited to try it as well, for the fact that I don't often run across Primo peppers too often in sauces.
So, I cracked the bottle open and immediately got another throwback, this one to more bygotten days of...let's just say it smelled skunky. How about that? If we're thinking the days of skunk weed, which is a scent pretty hard to forget after you're immersed for a while, and even if it's been multiple decades since the last time, any encounter is instantly recognizable, you're on the money. That the exact smell I got and I checked the label to see if it was also made with hemp or something. It, indeed, was not.
Sometimes something will have a fairly foul odor, but an overall good taste, which may or may not also reflect the smell. Not the case here. My guess is some interaction with the vinegar and the herbs and it seems much clearer now why sauce makers are not aiming anything at the Italian food side of things. I thought for years it was the clash of flavors, but that may be only part of the story. Whatever happened here has resulted in a foulness of flavor. If you can mask the flavor, there is a solid and fairly robust heat, but if you can't disguise this...far, far less enjoyable. I can't say it works a lot better on Italian food than any of the other ones I will usually use, even if it is a marinara. It's possible this is spoiled, but you can get quite a few of the shots at Italian flavoring staples to kind of see what they were going for, but this is a major miss for me.
Bottom line: This is a shame. Unless you really like the smell and flavor of skunk weed in your food, or really want to get a feel for Primo peppers and can't find anything else, steer clear of this one.
Breakdown:
Heat level: 4
Flavor: 0
Flexibility: 3
Enjoyment to dollar factor: 1
Overall: 2
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